“I think I like this tame new Haba, even if I don’t trust him one little bit.”
“Thank you, Master. The feeling is mutual.”
Ilar slapped him hard on the cheek so fast Seregil didn’t have time to brace himself. He went sprawling and the flask of oil spilled over his lap and the rug.
“You are my property now, Seregil, and you’d do well to remember that. I can do whatever I like with you, even torture and kill you, and no one would lift a hand to protect you. You are of no more worth than a candle or a glove-something to be used and discarded at my whim. What do you think I should do with you?”
Seregil pushed himself up, righted the flask before it could empty, and lifted Ilar’s foot back into his lap. “I wouldn’t be much use to you dead,” he observed, working his thumbs up the arched instep in a way that made Ilar gasp.
“Don’t be too sure of that, Haba.”
They were quiet for a while. Seregil kept his eyes on his work, trying not to choke on the heady aroma of the oil. “What will you do with your freedom when you get it, Master?” he asked, when he sensed from the occasional low moan that Ilar’s mood had improved sufficiently. “Where will you go?”
“Go?” Ilar was resting his head on one hand now, eyes hooded with unabashed pleasure as the massage continued, but the question drew his brows together. “Alec asked me the same thing, you know. So common with new slaves who haven’t come to terms with their situation.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Where would you have me go? Home to Aurënen? Like this, with the brands of shame on my skin forever? Have you ever seen a freedman in Aurënen?”
“Not that I know of,” Seregil admitted, slowly working the stiffness from Ilar’s toes. “But maybe they avoid the baths.”
Ilar snorted softly. “Even without these marks, I doubt I’d be very welcome. I’m certain you told them of my role in your downfall?”
“I didn’t have to. You ran away-Master. That spoke for itself.”
“It was that or the fate of the two bowls, wasn’t it? Tell me, how did you escape execution?”
“Teth’sag was declared against me, but the rhui’auros spoke for me and they exiled me instead. It might have been the same for you. You weren’t the one who committed the murder.”
“No, but your father and sister had their eye on me all summer and would have accused me as your seducer.”
Seregil forced himself to stay gentle as he worked his fingers over the delicate sinews and bones of Ilar’s ankle. “You did seduce me-Master,” he murmured.
“Perhaps, at first,” Ilar replied, suddenly wistful. “But I told you before, I began to love you, too.”
Seregil paused and took a deep breath, but he couldn’t hold back any longer. “So much that you sent me to that tent that night, knowing what had to happen?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice low. “Even if I hadn’t killed that man, I’d have been ruined anyway. That was what the Virésse were paying you for, right?” He broke off and rubbed oil carefully over Ilar’s long toes again, as if that could smooth his outburst.
“I never meant for you to kill anyone,” Ilar murmured, resting his head against the back of the chair, more relaxed than Seregil had ever seen him. “I thought you’d get a beating, nothing more.”
Seregil found that hard to believe. It had been an unforgivable breach of hospitality and one that reflected on his entire clan.
“I would have taken you with me, if I could have,” Ilar added quietly. “We would have been happy together. If not for Ulan í Sathil, I’d have been your talimenios.”
Seregil could tell that whatever the truth had been at the time, the man believed his own story now, and thought he meant what he’d just said. But then, they’d both had four decades to dwell on the events of that summer. Did either of them remember anything more than they really wanted to?
Ilar sighed. “You don’t believe me, do you, Haba?”
“What does it matter, Master?” Seregil replied, fighting down the sudden rush of doubt.
Ilar leaned down suddenly, caught him by the collar, and pulled him into a hard kiss. The oil flask fell again, and the scent of roses engulfed them. Seregil made no effort to resist or participate, and he was gratified to see the hint of disappointment in the other man’s eyes as he pulled back. He stayed very still as Ilar cupped his face in both hands and looked into his eyes. After a moment he laughed softly and released Seregil. “Even after all these years, and all that’s befallen me, I’m still tempted. You should be flattered.”
“I suppose I am, Master.” Seregil forced the lie out, shaping it with a grudging sincerity. Let Ilar think he’d been moved by something other than disgust.
Perhaps the act rang true. Ilar grabbed him by the arms and pulled Seregil into his lap as if he were still the green young boy he’d been that long-ago summer. Seregil kept himself pliant and unresisting as Ilar ran greedy hands over his face, shoulders, and chest, then pulled him close to breathe in the scent of his hair.
And for one brief, traitorous moment, Seregil’s body remembered that touch.
Suddenly Ilar pushed Seregil from his lap. He landed on his ass and the bastard gave him a push with one oiled foot, sending Seregil onto his back.
“Feh! It’s like handling a corpse. Do you think you’ll win me over like that?” Ilar barked an order and one of the men outside came in and handed him the whip.
Seregil cowered on the rug, one hand on the wet patch of carpet where the oil had spilled, as Ilar rained blows down on his bowed back and shoulders. “Forgive me, Master! I didn’t dare presume. Do you want-?” Forgive me, Alec. “Do you want me tonight?”
With a bitter laugh, Ilar threw the whip down and pulled up the hem of his robe, letting Seregil see the ruin there. “What use would I have for you, like this?”
Seregil couldn’t suppress a shudder of sympathy; everything had been taken from Ilar. He had nothing left between his legs but scars.
“Oh, Master!” Still not ready to give up the game, he carefully placed a hand on the man’s thigh, just below the hip. “You wouldn’t be my first eunuch.”
Ilar stepped back and dropped his robe, but for just an instant Seregil caught the fleeting glimpse of a naked emotion in those hazel eyes: want.
“Really?” Ilar sneered. “What an interesting life you’ve led, being free all these years. Would you play the clever whore for me, too, for the sake of that half-breed of yours? Or are you planning to insinuate yourself into my bed so you can strangle me there?”
Seregil sat back on his heels and met his tormentor eye to eye, unflinching. “I gave you my word, Master Ilar: My life for his. I won’t harm you as long as he remains alive.”
And once again, he saw that hesitation, that hint of vulnerability. And once again, it passed.
Ilar shook his head and put his clothing back in order. “No? Well, perhaps I will consider your very generous offer, but not tonight.”
He picked up the whip and went to the door. “Oh, and to answer your earlier question, Master Yhakobin is generously setting me up in a house of my own, once he’s achieved success. Freedmen with a patron like mine live very, very well here. You’ll be my very first slave, an ornament for my household. So enjoy your glimpses of your talimenios while you can.”
Seregil remained on his knees for some time, surrounded by the overpowering smell of roses. Time was growing short. He silently thanked the Four that Ilar had revealed as much as he had. It stuck in his throat, to play the broken, docile slave, but tonight’s work made it all worthwhile.
Now, to learn how long he had.
The scent of the oil clung to Seregil’s hands even after he’d scrubbed them in the basin. It pervaded his dreams as he lay in the dark, chasing sleep.
Wild white roses were blooming along the river by his father’s encampment that summer. Ilar had plucked one for him the first time they’d kissed. He carefully broke off the thorns and tucked it behind Seregil’s ear.
&n
bsp; “You’re lovely.”
“I’m not. You just want to kiss me again.”
“You are, and I do.”
And he had.
Seregil handed him a rose, but instead it was a dagger and he plunged it into Ilar’s beautiful throat, as unerringly as he had with the Haman he’d killed…
Now it was the young Haman lying at his feet. Moonlight turned the blood black on the dead man’s skin and clothing, and his hair was like a halo of snow. And Ilar was there in the shadows, sobbing, with blood running down his thighs…No, it was Alec. They’d gelded Alec! And something pale and frightening was struggling beneath the bushes, rustling in the dead leaves…
Seregil sat up in the darkness and put a hand to his cheek. He was crying. But for whom?
The sound of the rustling leaves came again, startling him badly, until he realized it was someone scratching at his door.
He went to the door and pressed an ear to it, whispering, “Who is it?” He had an idea, but was careful not to betray any potential ally if it was Ilar out there, playing with him out of spite.
“It’s Rhania.” She spoke so softly he could hardly hear her.
“What do you want?”
“Are you a ‘runner in the night,’ as they say?”
“Did you wake me just to ask me that?”
“Does a runner in the night know how to run away from this house?”
Seregil waited, saying nothing.
“Can you get out of here?” she whispered urgently.
“As you can see, I can’t even get out of this room.”
“But if you could?”
“Perhaps. But they cut off the feet of those who run away. Zoriel told me so.”
“Only those who are caught.”
“You want me to help you escape?”
“Shhhh!” A pause, then, “Yes! Until now I have had no hope, but I heard Khenir speak of you to some of the others, bragging how he had brought low so clever a man as you.”
“Did he, now?”
“Yes. You hate Khenir, do you not? Perhaps even as much as I?”
“Oh, I think I have more practice at it than even you, my lady. Do you know how soon he is leaving this house?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks, perhaps? A house is being made ready for him.”
“Have you seen a blond half ’faie here? In the workshop, perhaps?”
“Yes, he’s there. He’s closely watched.” She paused, then whispered more softly still, “Someone is coming! Think on what I have said.”
Seregil didn’t hear so much as a whisper of a footstep, but when he heard several pairs of heavy feet pass by a moment later without incident, he knew she was gone.
He went back to bed with his heart racing. It was too soon to get his hopes up, but this was the start he’d hoped for. He whispered a blessing aloud across his left palm, “Marös Aura Elustri chyptir! Hang on, talí. I’ll be with you soon!”
CHAPTER 29 Cross Purposes
KORATHAN APPEARED AT Thero’s door without warning one morning as the wizard was sitting down to breakfast. He rose, intending to invite him to share his humble meal, but the look on the prince’s face killed the pleasantries, unspoken.
“You’ve had news.”
“Of the worst sort. The khirnari of Gedre has sent word. It appears that our friends and their escort were ambushed less than two days out of Gedre. The escort was killed. Seregil and Alec are missing.”
“When did he learn this?”
“Only recently. The bodies had been hidden, and no one in Bôkthersa knew to look for them until some trader stumbled across them. Zengati arrows were found with the bodies.”
“I see. What does the queen say?”
“She is upset, of course, and means to send a second delegation.”
“That’s it? What about Seregil and Alec?”
“My guess is that they were taken by slavers. I was hoping that you could be of assistance and look with that wizard eye spell of yours.”
Thero had to take a quick breath to calm himself; why was it that everyone thought wizards could just snap their fingers and do anything that was needed in a heartbeat?
“With all due respect, your Highness, they could be halfway to Khouimir by now. Or in any of the hundreds of Zengati slave markets between there and the border.” He sat down, overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. “Or in Plenimar, for that matter. I have no firsthand knowledge of either place, aside from a bit of the western coast of Plenimar.”
But his mind was already racing. “But if it is Plenimar, then they’d most likely be taken to Benshâl or Riga first, from what I’ve heard. But again, there’s no way to know which direction they were taken, or to what land. Such a search would take a hundred wizards months, if not years, to accomplish. I’m sorry, Highness, but it’s virtually impossible that way, like looking for a couple of lentils in a crib of corn.”
“What would you suggest, then?”
“If it were anyone else we were looking for, I’d say to send Seregil and Alec,” Thero replied grimly. “Or Micum Cavish.”
“We still have him. I suggest you send for him at once.”
Thero sent off a message sphere to Watermead, and had word back in an instant that Micum was on his way.
Breakfast forgotten, he locked his tower door and went into the casting room. He chalked the proper circle, then knelt in the center and paused, considering his next move. He suspected that Phoria would consider what he was about to do disobedience at the very least, but that was why the windowless casting room was protected from prying eyes of all sorts by more than walls and locks.
A message spell was too limited, and a translocation to Bôkthersa, while certainly possible, was far too risky for now, and would involve Magyana, the only wizard left proficient at the powerful spell. Instead, he had dusted off one of the oldest tomes in Nysander’s library and found a spell created by his master’s master, Arkoniel. It was a precursor to the translocation magic, based on something so unlike traditional Orëska magic that Thero had always suspected it was from some other source. Nysander had hinted as much the one time he’d shown Thero how it worked.
He’d called it a “window spell,” and that was the simplest way of imagining it. Cast correctly, it opened a portal through distance, allowing a wizard to look through to where another person was, no matter how far, and speak with him. Useful as that might be, Nysander had disliked it, and cautioned Thero against using it because it was crude, and dangerous both to the caster and the one who was sought through it. To illustrate this point, he’d opened a window to a distant valley and swung a dead rat by the tail through the opening. Only the severed end of the tail had swung back.
Klia would be alone in her room, probably still asleep, at this hour. Thero knew her rooms at Bôkthersa as well as he knew his own here, and carefully focused on a spot far enough from the bed that she would not inadvertently reach out and be injured.
Following Master Arkoniel’s carefully written directions, Thero spoke the words and cupped his hands together, then folded them open like a pair of shutters. The space between, about the size of a small hand mirror, shimmered for an instant, then filled with shadow and color. It had worked. He was looking into Klia’s room.
Just enough light came through a parting of the long curtains to illuminate a fall of shining chestnut hair, and one bare shoulder above the coverlet.
“Klia,” he called softly, not wanting to alert the bodyguard outside her door. There was no telling who was there anymore, or where their loyalties lay.
She stirred, but only to pull the covers up under her chin. She was a deep sleeper, when not in the field. The hand that remained resting near her ear was the maimed one. The first and middle fingers were gone, but what remained was strong and graceful, and beautiful to Thero, who knew what she’d endured. She’d allowed him to kiss that scarred flesh once and his lips still tingled at the memory.
He caught himself woolgathering and tried again. “Your
Highness, wake up!”
She sighed deeply, then pushed back the covers and sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was a dark, tousled mess, and her nightgown hung askew off one shoulder. He caught himself with a guilty start as he leaned dangerously close to the aperture.
“What? Who is it?” she asked sharply, reaching under her pillow for the dagger he knew she kept there.
“Over here,” he called, and widened the opening so that she could see him better.
“Thero?” She slid out of bed and threw on a shawl. “What in the world is this?”
“Stay back, please!” he warned, then gave her a brief explanation of the spell.
“I see.” She kept her distance, frowning. “Well, my friend, I’ve missed you badly, but what brings you into my bedchamber at this hour and by such a strange method?”
“Seregil and Alec. Have you had any word from them recently?”
She was awake now. Mention of Seregil always got her attention, he thought with a stab of envy. “No, nothing. What’s going on?”
“Phoria sent them to fetch you. I know they landed at Gedre over a month ago, but nothing’s been heard of them since.” He hesitated, hating to be the bearer of bad tidings just yet. “They were carrying letters from the queen. She’s recalled you to Skala.”
“Really?” Klia sounded less than convinced. “And why didn’t she let me return with my own bodyguard?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a test. She still doubts your loyalty and your response to the summons is to be the touchstone. I suppose she didn’t want Urghazi Turma there defending you if you-” He broke off, not wanting to insult her.
“But I never got any message!”
“No. It appears they were ambushed before they could reach you. I hoped they might have escaped and continued on, but they should have reached you by now.”
Even in the muted light of the bedchamber, he could see the anger flashing in Klia’s blue eyes. “Do you think my sister may have had something to do with their disappearance?”
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